Graduate education in the United States is viewed as a narrowing and intellectually confining experience, and its effects on the student and society are discussed. The experience of the graduate student includes learning how to deal with departmental requirements, course expectations, and demands from professors. The ability to "hustle" to meet the requirements of the program is an important skill and is seen as a form of academic socialization found in every discipline. Rather than developing an inquisitive mind, unafraid to delve into various fields and raise important questions, graduate schools force students to function within a particular paradigm producing graduates with shallow vision and limited credentials. Training received in graduate school, the skills required to"hustle," are then put into practice in the professional world and the result is a group of power-seeking people of action and little depth. Professors also partake in the academic "hustle" in order to attract students and to publish papers and books. Students, professors, and people in general are seen as victims of a technological society that demands a supply of bureaucrats, politicians, business and technical persons to keep the system running, and provides few rewards for the reflective intellectual who is not willing to play along. (BH)